By Caroline Katana
The Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) has warned that land injustices at the Coast remain unresolved, with many residents still facing dispossession despite existing laws and commissions tasked with addressing the problem.
Speaking in Mombasa during media training with journalists from Kwale, Taita Taveta, and Mombasa counties, KLA Chief Executive Officer and land rights lawyer Faith Allube said the media has a crucial role in holding institutions accountable and informing the public on land matters.
“Journalists are society’s watchdog. Their role is to raise awareness and ensure communities have access to accurate information that empowers them to make decisions,” she noted.
For close to two years, KLA has been running a coastal land rights program.
Allube said the organization has now trained journalists to report more effectively on compensation disputes, large-scale land investments, and inheritance rights, issues that have often disadvantaged widows and other vulnerable groups.
The Burden of History
According to Allube, no meaningful progress can be made in curbing land grabbing until historical land injustices are resolved.
“These cases have lingered for decades. The National Land Commission, whose constitutional mandate includes addressing these injustices, is nearing the end of its six-year term. Communities need to evaluate whether it has delivered justice,” she said.
The Coast’s land question stretches back to pre-colonial and colonial times, shaped by treaties with the Sultan Omans, forced displacement under colonial rule, and post-independence allocations that benefited political elites. As a result, large segments of the coastal population remain squatters on ancestral land.
Scrutiny Over the Land Fund
Allube also cast doubt on the management of the Ardhi Fund, questioning its transparency and whether communities were ever consulted.
“Whose land is being purchased, and who benefits? If the very people meant to gain from the fund are excluded from these conversations, then this is nothing more than a continuation of land grabbing,” she said, urging for full public participation in decisions about the fund.
Cases Under the Spotlight
KLA is currently supporting communities in various disputes across the Coast, including:
Bamburi and Kwale’s Base Titanium , A conflict over the Kipini Conservancy in Tana River, Concerns over resettlement schemes in Kilifi, disputes involving group ranches and iron ore extraction in Taita Taveta and a proposed nuclear plant in Kilifi, which was shifted to Siaya, also remains an unresolved matter.
“These cases expose the systemic exclusion of local communities from decisions that directly affect their livelihoods and resources,” Allube explained.
Gender and Generational Inequities
The KLA CEO further emphasized the need to protect women’s rights to land ownership and succession, noting that widows in particular continue to be denied inheritance.
She also highlighted the lack of intergenerational dialogue on land rights, saying this gap is leaving younger generations unprepared to safeguard community resources.
Political Good Will
Kenya’s legal framework, Allube observed, is not the problem.
She said the Kenyan Constitution is among the strongest in Africa in terms of human rights and land provisions but the challenge is enforcement.
“Politicians manipulate the land question for their own gain, leaving communities powerless,” she said.
She called on the government to speed up issuance of title deeds and adopt reforms that reflect the lived realities of coastal residents.
“More than a hundred years since colonial dispossession, and decades after independence, people at the Coast are still tenants on their own land. Without political goodwill, this cycle of injustice will not end,” Allube warned.
Ends
